RSS
Hezbollah’s Pioneering Role in Suicide Terrorism
Aftermath of the bombing of the US Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, October 1983. (Photo: Screenshot)
JNS.org – The Israel Defense Forces has recently reassessed its official explanation for a deadly explosion that rocked an administration building used by Israel in southern Lebanon in 1982. In doing so, it cast a spotlight on Hezbollah’s pioneering role in introducing suicide bombing to the Middle East.
A new investigation committee led by Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amir Abulafia, which included members of the Israel Security Agency and the Israel Police, determined “with high probability” that the collapse of the administration building in Tyre on Nov. 11, 1982, was due to a suicide car bombing.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 76 security personnel (from the Border Police, IDF and ISA) and 15 Lebanese detainees. Soon after the attack, Hezbollah claimed responsibility and commemorated it as the death of its “first martyr.”
Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University in Herzliya, pointed out that this conclusion is not a new one.
“Most if not all experts on Hezbollah and suicide bombing considered early on that the bombing was the result of a suicide operation by Hezbollah,” Karmon told JNS.
He noted that a monument near Baalbek, Lebanon, is dedicated to 17-year-old Ahmad Qasir, the bomber responsible for the attack. Hezbollah celebrates the attack annually on November 11 as Martyr Day, with Nasrallah referring to it as the organization’s first.
Nearly a year after that attack, Karmon said, another suicide bombing occurred in Tyre, on Nov. 4, 1983. The bomber drove a pickup truck filled with explosives into an ISA building located at an IDF base, resulting in the deaths of 28 Israelis and 32 Lebanese prisoners, and wounding about 40 others.
These bombings firmly established Hezbollah as a pioneering force in suicide terrorism in the region.
However, Karmon added, the first modern suicide bombing in the Middle East is considered to have occurred on Dec. 15, 1981, in the form of an attack on the Iraqi embassy in Beirut by the Iraqi Shi’ite Islamist group al-Dawa.
The explosion leveled the embassy, killing 61 people and injuring at least 100 others. It was likely the first of five signature bombings organized by Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah terrorist leader, in which a terrorist drive into a building with a bomb-laden truck, Karmon assessed. Mughniyeh was assassinated in a car bomb in Damascus, Syria, in 2008.
“The Lebanese branch of the Iraqi Dawa Party was founded in the 1960s. It would later become a core component in the establishment of the Hezbollah movement in 1982,” Karmon explained.
The use of suicide bombings by Hezbollah was significantly inspired by the tactics employed by Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War, according to Karmon.
“The sacrifice and martyrdom of Iranian young or child soldiers” likely influenced the young Hezbollah operatives, he stated. During the Iran-Iraq War, Iranian child soldiers were given plastic “keys to paradise” as symbolic assurances of their passage into heaven upon their deaths. These young soldiers were frequently used to clear minefields by simply walking through them, an act celebrated in Iran as a form of ultimate martyrdom.
Hezbollah’s introduction of suicide bombings set a precedent that was soon emulated by other, Palestinian Sunni terrorist organizations.
Karmon noted that after Israel deported 415 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives to Lebanon in December 1992, the deportees established a camp near the southern Lebanese village of Marj al-Zuhur, close to the Israeli border. During their stay in southern Lebanon, they were indoctrinated and trained in suicide bombing by Hezbollah operatives. After a year, they were permitted by Israel to travel back Gaza and Judea and Samaria, and began organizing the first suicide bombing atrocities of the 1990s.
The Mehola Junction bombing on April 16, 1993, in Samaria, marked the first suicide car-bombing carried out by Hamas and PIJ terrorists, said Karmon. This was followed by another car bombing by Hamas member Sulayman Zidan on Oct. 4, 1993 at Beit El.
Bassam Abu-Sharif, former PFLP spokesman, claims in his book Tried by Fire that Waddi Haddad, the operational leader of the terror organization at the time, initiated suicide bombings in the early 1970s. One recruit, Abu Harb, was trained to fly a twin-engine plane from the Bekaa Valley to Tel Aviv, with the intent of crashing it into the Shalom Tower. The plan was thwarted when Abu Harb crashed during a practice landing and was severely injured. Published in 1995, Sharif’s book predates the 9/11 attacks by six years.
The spread of suicide bombing tactics was not limited to the Middle East, Karmon told JNS.
In 1983, Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger cadres were training in Hezbollah terror camps at the time of the massive suicide truck bombing of the US Marines in Beirut.
“A few years later, the head of the Tamil Tigers, Prabhakaran, decided to try to model an attack after the Beirut suicide truck assassination,” said Karmon.
In July 1987, the first Tamil Tiger suicide attack occurred when a terrorist drove a truck into a barracks of Sinhalese Sri Lankan troops. This attack initiated a wave of suicide bombings that lasted for over two decades, demonstrating the wide-reaching influence of Hezbollah’s tactics.
“But they are not religious,” said Karmon in reference to the Tamil Tigers. “They’re not Islamic. They’re a Hindu group, a Marxist group. They’re actually anti-religious. They are building the concept of martyrdom around a secular idea of individuals essentially altruistically sacrificing for the good of the local community.” Nevertheless, the Tigers ended up killing a Sri Lankan president with a suicide bombing in 1993.
The Kurdish PKK separatists in Turkey also adopted suicide attacks. The group began using suicide attacks in mid-1996. Most PKK suicide attacks were carried out by women against military or police targets, and the campaign proved to be ineffective.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda began to adopt this tactic by the 1990s, and went on to plot and implement the deadliest suicide mass casualty terror attack in history, on Sept. 11, 2001. The hijacking of four passenger aircraft on that dark day occurred 30 years after the PFLP hijacked five passenger planes simultaneously and blew them up in Jordan.
In the years that followed 9/11, Al-Qaeda inspired jihadists would implement suicide terrorism in Iraq, Syria and around the Middle East, as well as in European cities. Islamic State, its successor organization, adopted the tactic as well, employing it in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa.
The post Hezbollah’s Pioneering Role in Suicide Terrorism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Senate Confirms Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel
Mike Huckabee looks on as Donald Trump reacts during a campaign event at the Drexelbrook Catering and Event Center, in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, US, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
The US Senate on Wednesday backed former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel, installing a staunch pro-Israel conservative in the high-profile post amid war in Gaza and relations complicated by US tariffs.
The Senate backed Huckabee by 53 to 46, largely along party lines, with Republicans all supporting President Donald Trump’s nominee and every Democrat except Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman voting against him.
An evangelical Christian, Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Critics said the former Republican presidential candidate was too partisan to represent the United States given the sensitivity of negotiations to end the war in Gaza and avoid broader regional war.
Huckabee’s supporters said he knew Israel well, having visited more than 100 times, and was well positioned to work closely with Trump to bring peace to a chaotic part of the world.
“We urgently need a qualified ambassador in the region, and I have no doubt Mike Huckabee is that person,” Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said as he urged support for the nominee.
PRO-ISRAEL POLICIES
Trump has pursued strongly pro-Israel policies as president and his choice of Huckabee as ambassador signaled that they would continue.
Pro-Israel evangelicals are an important part of Trump’s base and voted heavily in favor of him in the Nov. 5 election.
“There’s no such thing as an occupation,” Huckabee said in a 2017 interview with CNN, in which he referred to the West Bank by its biblical names Judea and Samaria.
During his first term, Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and sided with Israel on its claims over Palestinian territory in the West Bank. During his second, he has advocated taking a “hard stance” on Gaza, the Palestinian enclave for which he has proposed a US takeover.
The United States is Israel‘s closest ally and largest single trading partner. Netanyahu has visited Trump at the White House twice since Trump began his second term on January 20.
He was there this week, seeking to limit the sting of tariffs imposed on Israel as part of the Republican president’s sweeping tariff policy. Under the new policy, Israeli goods face a 17 percent US tariff, despite the two countries signing a free trade agreement 40 years ago.
Netanyahu pledged to eliminate Israel‘s trade surplus with the United States. But when asked if his administration planned to reduce tariffs on Israeli goods, Trump made no promises.
The post US Senate Confirms Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Argentina Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Over 1994 AMIA Bombing
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 25th anniversary of the atrocity in Buenos Aires. Photo: Reuters/Agustin Marcarian.
The lead prosecutor in the case of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires has petitioned Argentina’s federal court to issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, over his alleged involvement in the deadly terrorist attack.
On Tuesday, Sebastián Basso — who succeeded former prosecutor Alberto Nisman after his murder in 2015 — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas summon the Iranian leader for questioning and issue an international arrest warrant through Interpol.
He also ordered Argentina’s federal security forces to arrest Khamenei if he enters Argentine territory.
This latest legal move represents a significant shift from the country’s past approach in the case, in which the Iranian leader was treated as enjoying diplomatic immunity. Basso claimed that “this approach does not align with international law,” especially regarding crimes against humanity and acts of terrorism.
According to Argentinian local newspaper Clarin, the lead prosecutor argued that Khamenei was directly involved in planning the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires — the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history, in which 85 people were killed and more than 300 wounded.
The Iranian leader “led the decision to carry out a bomb attack in Buenos Aires in July 1994 and issued executive order (fatwa) 39 to carry it out,” Basso wrote in the resolution submitted to the court.
Khamenei not only has the final word in Iranian state matters, according to Basso, but also “all of Iran’s military and foreign policies are under his direct supervision.”
“It is also undeniable that … Khamenei is the main supporter of groups with military capabilities, such as Hezbollah,” the lead prosecutor said, referring to the Lebanese terrorist group and Iran’s chief proxy force.
He explained that Khamenei appointed Hezbollah’s recently slain secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, as his representative in Lebanon.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out. Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
In April 2024, Argentina’s second-highest court ruled that the 1994 attack in Buenos Aires was “organized, planned, financed, and executed under the direction of the authorities of the Islamic State of Iran, within the framework of Islamic Jihad.” The court also said that the bombing was carried out by Hezbollah terrorists responding to “a political and strategic design” by Iran.
The court additionally ruled that Iran had been responsible for the 1992 truck bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people.
Last year, Judge Rafecas requested Interpol to arrest four Lebanese citizens as part of the AMIA bombing investigation, citing “credible evidence that the four collaborated with Hezbollah’s military wing or acted as its operational agents.”
Since the terrorist attacks in 1992 and 1994, diplomatic relations between Buenos Aires and Tehran have remained strained, with this latest move and Argentina’s growing support for Israel under current President Javier Milei further intensifying tensions.
The post Argentina Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Over 1994 AMIA Bombing first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Pro-Hamas Activists Call for ‘Jihad’ in Rally Outside Israeli Embassy in Berlin
Anti-Israel protesters march in Germany, March 26, 2025. Photo: Sebastian Willnow/dpa via Reuters Connect
Pro-Hamas activists chanted antisemitic slogans, called for “jihad,” and celebrated “armed struggle” against Israel at a demonstration outside the Israeli embassy in Berlin earlier this week.
The calls for violence came amid new revelations that the German capital has failed to spend millions of euros specifically allocated for combating antisemitism, which has reached record levels across Germany following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Approximately 220 Hamas sympathizers reportedly rallied in the Schmargendorf neighborhood, a southwestern area of Berlin, under the slogan “Freedom for Palestine! End the genocide in Gaza!”
According to German media, the protesters chanted, “The people want to declare jihad!” and “Anyone who wants to reclaim the country must carry a weapon,” among other statements calling for violence. A reporter for the German tabloid newspaper Bild shared video from the scene on social media.
„Hört auf, verbotene Parolen zu skandieren – sonst beende ich die Demo!“ Mit diesen Worten versucht die Veranstalterin der Pro-Palästina-Kundgebung vor der israelische Botschaft in Berlin ihre Leute zu stoppen. Doch die Berliner Polizei? Schaut weiter zu.#b0704 pic.twitter.com/NkSU7Xl7Dx
— Iman Sefati (@ISefati) April 7, 2025
According to local police, a 31-year-old man was arrested during the rally for using a prohibited slogan and is under investigation for displaying symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organizations.
In front of the Israeli embassy in Berlin, one of the speakers leading the protest was reportedly Ahmad Tamim from Generation Islam, who allegedly said, “Our task is to liberate Palestine once again.”
German authorities have identified Generation Islam as part of the international Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir – an antisemitic organization that actively promotes and encourages terrorism and praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in southern Israel. The group has been banned in Germany since 2003, as well as in several other countries, for advocating for the destruction of the State of Israel through militant jihad.
Offener Aufruf zum heiligen Krieg – mitten in Berlin?
„Das Volk will den Dschihad!“ – Islamisten-Parolen vor Israels Botschaft!
Was sich gestern vor der israelischen Botschaft abspielte, ist kaum zu fassen – und brandgefährlich:
Bei einer Pro-Palästina-Demo brüllten… pic.twitter.com/oDqC29J9Zt— Iman Sefati (@ISefati) April 8, 2025
The rally came after the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel revealed last week that the Berlin Senate has done nothing with 3.5 million of the 11 million euros that the federal government allocated to the German capital to fight antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
The funds were reportedly not spent, despite a historic surge in antisemitic incidents, due to organizational and administrative issues — specifically the absence of any department dedicated to the fight against anti-Jewish hatred through which the money could flow.
Meanwhile, the 8.5 million euros that were actually spent are being called into question for alleged misappropriation, with critics charging the money went to organizations not equipped for or effective at combating antisemitism.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In just the first six months of 2024, for example, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for the entire previous year, setting a new record for the highest annual count, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
Last week, German authorities issued deportation orders for three EU citizens and one US citizen living in Berlin over their participation in anti-Israel protests, stating that they “pose a threat to public order.”
The post Pro-Hamas Activists Call for ‘Jihad’ in Rally Outside Israeli Embassy in Berlin first appeared on Algemeiner.com.